Being In Control Is All About Letting Go

I was having a conversation with someone recently about the concept of Living Consciously. After a while they said to me, “it sounds like it’s all about always being in control”. I replied, “it’s not about always being in control all the time, but understanding when to take control and when it is about letting go.”

I believe the phrase ‘control freak’ popped up in that conversation too.

The way I feel about living consciously is that it’s more about letting go than it is taking control.

A quick example is the feeling of frustration. Frustration is often as a result of a situation not going the way we wanted it to. So rather than trying to force an outcome, I do what I need to and just allow the results to unfold.

Letting Go

The thing I do try and take control of is my mind. If I were to always let my mind do what it wants I would probably be stressed out often because my mind has the habit of running away with thoughts of “I need to do this, I need to do that, I have to contact so and so, I have to respond to this email” etc.

So what I do is I say ‘stop, relax and chill’. I take a moment to regain control of my most important faculty and when I’ve gotten to a point where I’m relaxed again I’ll let go.

Simply put, I can control what goes on inside me, but I can’t control what goes on outside.

I’m in control of what I choose to focus on. When I don’t take control of that power, my emotions tend to be more erratic. Whereas, if I take control and choose what to focus on, my emotions are more in check; and that is a good thing. After all, how many good things have you done or achieved while you’ve been irrational?

I’m not in control of how well this article performs. I’m only in control of the writing and focusing on making my point clearly an making sure that people enjoy reading what I write.

Lets say I’m pitching a new client. I’m in complete control of my pitch, but I can’t force them to accept me. That’s always their choice…if I push too hard because I’m desperate they’re more likely to pull away.

But lets just take that one step further and focus on the ‘pitch’ part of that example. I am in control of how well I perform during the pitch. If I’m a nervous speaker, I can prepare myself better and therefore perform better. That is also within my control.

The outcome is always in the hands of something I have no power over. Even if I did, where would the mystery and excitement in life go?

There is so much power and respite in letting go. When you let go and and stop trying to be in control of everything you’ll find that more happens to go your way.

Try this; be in control of letting go, i.e., decide, for now that you’re going to let go of trying to control how things turn out in your life, just enjoy the here and now and the doing.

28 Responses

WOW I so needed this. I was in a great relationship with a great guy but had a lot of stuff going on and people trying to control me in my life and I flipped out, had a mental breakdown, and wound up saying things that damaged the relationship. I kept trying to control the situation to prevent it from disintegrating completely and only destroyed it further. Now he wont even speak to me.

I really needed to read this, actually it would have helped to read it 2 months ago, but thats okay. maybe I needed it more now. I need to let go, let go of trying to force him to come back, let go of the factors I cant control. Let go of the feelings of abandonment and shame, and let go of him. If he wants me, if the universe sees fit to have us be together, if i let go, he will come back. if not, maybe someone else will come into my life.

Hey Amie, I’m truly sorry to hear about the situation that you went through…I can sympathise and I know it must have been tough. I’ve really found this concept of letting go so powerful…although it’s not easy, we want to be able to have things go the way we want but that can never always be the case.

It’s good to hear what you took away from the whole situation and like you said, you never know. In my experience, anything I’ve truly let go, always comes back. 🙂

I agree fully that when you let go of control, more comes your way. As I write about in Losing Control, Finding Serenity: How the Need to Control Hurts Us and How to Let It Go, our “blinders” are removed when we give up control, and we can “see” new paths and opportunities that had been obscured because of the intensity of our controlling actions. It also frees life’s “natural currents” and we have the opportunity to engage those currents in an expansive and intuitive manner, often resulting in unexpected, wonderful gifts.

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